Our Business News

HSBC was fined for money laundering activities tied to drug cartels in Mexico and terror-linked groups in Saudi Arabia in December 2012. . Standard Chartered was levied the fine on August and December 2012 for violating U.S. sanctions on transactions with Iran, Burma, Libya and Sudan. In June 2012. ING Group was charged for covering up fund transfers in violation of U.S. sanctions against Cuba and Iran. Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse was penalized for allowing clients in Iran, Libya, Sudan, Myanmar and Cuba to conduct financial transactions. Barclays Banking Group faced the fine for rigging the Californian electricity market [...]

HSBC Holdings Plc has agreed to pay $ 1.92 billion to settle a multi-year U.S. criminal probe into money-laundering lapses at the British lender, the largest penalty ever paid by a bank. HSBC admitted to a breakdown of controls and apologized in a statement announcing it had reached a deferred-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, as was first reported by Reuters last week. “We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made [...]

An HSBC bank branch is pictured in central London on August 1, 2011.HSBC is expected to pay $ 1.9 billion to settle money laundering accusationsStanChart agreed to pay $ 327M to settle allegations it violated US sanctions law The broad allegations against HSBC were detailed in a July report by the U.S. Senate Bank spokesperson said: “We are co-operating with authorities in ongoing investigations.”(Financial Times) — HSBC and Standard Chartered, the two biggest UK banks by market value, are to pay more than $ 2.5bn in fines as part of record settlements with US authorities over money laundering allegations.People familiar [...]

BRUSSELS Philips, LG Electronics, Samsung SDI and three other firms were fined a record 1.47 billion euros ($ 1.92 billion) by EU antitrust regulators for fixing prices of TV and monitor cathode-ray tubes for nearly a decade. The European Commission slapped the biggest penalty, of 313.4 million euros, on Dutch-based Philips on Wednesday. LG Electronics came in second with a 295.6 million euro fine. The EU competition authority fined Panasonic Corp 157.5 million euros, Samsung SDI 150.8 million euros, Toshiba Corp. 28 million euros, and French company Technicolor 38.6 million euros. Two Panasonic joint ventures were also fined. Taiwanese firm [...]

BELLEVUE, Washington – Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company’s record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders’ meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc’s iPad. Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world’s largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad. Gates was silent throughout the meeting, attended by about 450 shareholders. “We’re innovating on the [...]

NEW YORK A total of 89 million Americans shopped online and in stores on Black Friday, up from 86 million in 2011, the National Retail Federation said Sunday in a news release. The NRF survey conducted by BIGinsight found a record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites during Black Friday weekend, up from 226 million last year, with the average holiday shopper spending $ 423 this weekend, up from $ 398 last year. More than 35 million Americans visted retail stores and websites Thursday, up from 29 million last year, the trade group said. Big box stores including Wal-Mart [...]

The U.S. Postal Service reported a record annual loss on Thursday and warned that, without congressional action, it could face a cash shortfall next fall. The mail service said it lost $ 15.9 billion in the fiscal year that ended on September 30. That is more than triple its $ 5.1 billion loss last year. The USPS, which relies on the sale of stamps and other products rather than taxpayer dollars, has been grappling for years with high costs and tumbling mail volumes as consumers communicate more online. In September, the Postal Service hit its $ 15 billion borrowing limit [...]

The U.S. Postal Service reported a record annual loss on Thursday and warned that, without congressional action, it could face a cash shortfall next fall. The mail service said it lost $ 15.9 billion in the fiscal year that ended on September 30. That is more than triple its $ 5.1 billion loss last year. The USPS, which relies on the sale of stamps and other products rather than taxpayer dollars, has been grappling for years with high costs and tumbling mail volumes as consumers communicate more online. In September, the Postal Service hit its $ 15 billion borrowing limit [...]

HOUSTON/ BP Plc will pay $ 4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill ever. The settlement includes a $ 1.256 billion criminal fine, the largest such levy in U.S. history, the oil company said on Thursday. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the deal a “critical step forward” but was adamant that it did not end the government’s criminal investigation of the spill. The government also indicted the two highest-ranking BP supervisors aboard the Deepwater Horizon during the disaster, charging them with 23 criminal [...]

BP will pay a record criminal penalty to resolve some of its liability for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in a deal to be announced by the U.S. Justice Department as soon as Thursday, a source told Reuters. The source familiar with discussions did not disclose the actual amount of BP’s payment but said it would be the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history. That record is currently held by Pfizer Inc, which paid a $ 1.3 billion criminal fine in 2009 for marketing fraud connected to its Bextra pain medicine. (Reporting By David Ingram; Editing by Ken Wills)